STAR TREK BEYOND

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Star Trek Beyond - film review

Reviewed by: Mark GeraghtyReview date: July 16, 2016

Screen Fantastique rating: 4 stars

Star Trek Beyond successfully pulls off a mix of action and adventure balanced against the needs to service the franchise’s huge fan base, spanning a vast mix of gender, race and language that it has garnered over its 50 year history. There are points in the story, written by series actor Simon Pegg & Doug Jung, where the pressure of a hasty production could have done with a little more polish. However, the addition of Justin Lin, taking over directing duties from J.J. Abrams, compensates, as his skill in the action genre, having revived the Fast & Furious franchise, sees the Star Trek movie series deliver the biggest set-pieces it has ever attempted. The overall result is a film that does enough to please fans without pandering and capitalizes on the the success of the last two films in the reinvention of Star Trek as popular cinema fare.

Star Trek Beyond, rather wisely, picks up several years after the events of Into Darkness. The USS Enterprise is three years into her five year mission, which is a clever nod to The Original Series; having originally been cancelled after three seasons. In effect, Pegg and Jung are saying to fans, here’s what the next adventure of the Enterprise and her crew would have been (albeit set in the alternate ‘Kelvin’ timeline established by Abrams’ 2009 movie) if the show had kicked-off a fourth season. At this point in their mission, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew are well-worn by the challenges of deep space life and ship’s complement are all a little frayed around the edges. Countless ‘First Contact’ missions and the never-ending exploration of space has dimmed everyone’s enthusiasm to “Boldly go where no man has gone before”. In an attempt to boost morale, the Enterprise heads to Statbase Yorktown, a massive self-contained space facility that has been established as a galactic beach-head for the expanding United Federation of Planets (the Star Trek equivalent of the United Nations). No sooner has the Enterprise arrived at the Starbase, a new mission comes their way as an alien ship emerges from a nearby collapsed nebula; its sole occupant pleading for help to rescue her crew from an alien adversary. In terms of set-up, this is where Star Trek Beyond’s story lacks a certain logic. On the slimmest of evidence, the Enterprise and her crew head back out into space with an alien they don't know the slightest thing about and no support against an adversary they’ve already learned has advanced technology capable of destroying starships. To overcome this, Justin Lin unleashes the film’s first set piece upon the audience, as the alien adversary gains a name and a face in the form of Idris Elba’s Krall.

Fans of the Star Trek feature films have become used to the Enterprise being completely destroyed, but Star Trek Beyond takes it to a whole new level. Krall’s swarm ships take the Enterprise apart piece-by-piece as Starfleet’s flagship is smashed for the seventh time out of thirteen feature films. Credit goes to Pegg and Jung at this point, as the subsequent evacuation sees the crew split into smaller groups who end up having much more meaningful screen time than previous films. Kirk and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin) work together to locate the ship’s crew, Bones (Karl Urban) has to employ a little old-school M.A.S.H style first aid to save Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) attempt to uncover Krall’s plan and Scotty (Pegg) gets help from Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), an alien who was previously enslaved by Krall but has escaped and is a hiding a huge secret. It works well and gives everyone involved a sense of purpose throughout the film’s Second Act. The most underwhelming character is Idris Elba’s Krall, who, for the first part of the film, seems to lack reason for his desire to destroy the Enterprise and capture her crew. Fortunately, the character’s motivation crystallises in the film’s finale, allowing for a face-off between the thematic ideals of War and Peace!

Justin Lin and his production team deliver the most visually action-packed Star Trek film ever. From Krall’s attack on the Enterprise in space, a massive set-piece with Kirk and Chekov being pursued by the antagonist’s underlings in the smashed saucer section of the ship that has crash-landed in the planet, to the huge visual effects-driven finale aboard Starbase Yorktown, Star Trek Beyond leaves the audience feeling like it has over-dosed on eye-candy. Australian cinematographer Stephen F. Windon, who has worked with Justin Lin on the last four Fast & Furious movies, gives Beyond the most vibrant look of any Star Trek feature film, choosing to accentuate colour, providing yet another homage to The Original Series that will not be lost on fans. Thomas E. Sanders production design also references the aesthetic of the show, providing a mixture of high-tech settings, such as Starbase Yorktown, and more organic environments on Krall’s alien planet. Sanders does an especially nice job of expanding the Enterprise sets from Into Darkness, allowing Lin and Windon to capture the full scope of the action when Krall and his forces board the ship about a third of the way into the film.

Star Trek Beyond may not the deep and meaningful meditation of the human condition that was extolled by The Original Series creator Gene Roddenberry, but there's a lot of action, a fair degree of humour and enough acknowledgement of the broader Star Trek franchise to more than satisfy the needs of the many. In early 2015, executives at Paramount Studios (the owner of Star Trek movie rights) were believed to have wanted the next instalment to be more like Guardians of the Galaxy, the Marvel Studios sci-fi action film that had hit Box Office pay-dirt the previous Northern Hemisphere summer. Understandably, fans were horrified at how a Guardians overlay would look on the Star Trek franchise. Fortunately, the creative team behind Star Trek Beyond are all experienced film-makers and have worked in big franchises previously. They’re all smart enough to know you just can't do a creative knock-off of the last best effort and hope it will succeed. (That’s for Roger Corman to take care of…) It’s fair to say there is some Guardians influence in Star Trek Beyond, but that's not a bad thing. There’s also Fast & Furious influences. There’s Star Wars influences. You name it, there’s another franchise in there. That’s just movie-making. In the end though, the biggest influence is the Star Trek franchise itself. Star Trek Beyond honours the first 50 years of the franchise and helps to kick-off the second 50 years with the spirit of adventure and a nod to the franchise’s mantra of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Live long and prosper!

Sofia Boutella has risen to prominence as an actress in a very short time. Her break-out role as Gazelle, Samuel L. Jackson's Valentine's deadly assassin, in Kingsman: The Secret Service saw her cast not only in Star Trek Beyond, but also land the role of the Mummy in the Universal Studios reboot of currently-filming The Mummy starring Tom Cruise. Boutella also has a starring role alongside Charlize Theron and James McAvoy in the Cold War espionage drama The Coldest City, due out in 2017. In Star Trek Beyond, Boutella plays Jaylah, a young alien woman who Scotty (Simon Pegg) befriends when he is separated from the rest of the Enterprise crew. Jaylah helps Scotty search for other members of the crew and is instrumental in providing a way off the alien planet on which they have become trapped.

Idris Elba is Star Trek's new Big Bad as Krall!July 14, 2016

Idris Elba is Krall, the latest foe to confront the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the new film Star Trek Beyond. The choice of Elba as Krall seems like an inspired piece of casting, as the English actor has a strong fan-base and recent talk about him as a candidate to be the next James Bond has lifted his media profile quite dramatically. Not a lot of has been revealed about Krall, but audiences are definitely in for a huge revelation about the motivation he has for his hatred of the Federation. Writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung have done a nice job of distilling the character's villainy and make it not just personal vendetta, but a genuine rage about what the Federation and Starfleet stand for and his perception of their arrogance about the righteousness of their 'Star Trek'.

The latest Star Trek film was a key part of an hour-long presentation celebrating 50 years of the famous science fiction franchise. Check out the video...

Should this man be worried?May 8, 2016

Star Trek Beyond Director Justin Lin hasn't really had much to say about his foray to the Final Frontier, but growing online chatter should be a worry to the film's producer's as the movie's absence from the Paramount presentation at Cinemacon 2016, held in Las Vegas, was a surprise and a concern for America's multiplex owners. Since Cinemacon, Paramount has announced that a special fan event will be held at the end of May to promote the film, with cast & crew attending to spread the word among Trekkers and release an all-new trailer (not before time). In the mean time, a number of new images have been made available online following their distribution via various mainstream media. There's not a great deal that has not already been revealed, with the exception of Idris Elba's Krall, who appears to have found his way aboard the Enterprise.

STAR TREK BEYOND first trailer images...

The first trailer for Star Trek: Beyond wasn't met with overwhelming enthusiasm by fans of the franchise, as the Paramount marketing team leaned a little too heavily on the connection to the 2009 film with the use of the Beastie Boys' Sabotage.

STAR TREK BEYOND Dubai Press ConferenceSeptember 30, 2015

Key members of the STAR TREK BEYOND cast and crew attended a press conference in Dubai to promote their use of the city for key exterior location filming to round out the principal photography for the film that is set for release on July 22, 2016. Cast members Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin appeared along with Director Justin Lin, Co-writer Doug Jung and Executive Producer Jeffrey Chernov, who has produced the last three STAR TREK films. Check out the video to see what they said:

Exploring strange new worlds...August 21, 2015

A behind-the-scenes video has emerged of Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin and Sofia Boutella emerging from a vessel or building of some sort with a huge green screen in the background. In what appears to be an effects heavy shot, Pine's Captain Kirk engages in some pretend play with objects that will be inserted in post-production, while Simon Pegg takes great delight at taking the piss out of Anton Yelchin's overly upbeat emergence. Boutella's alien make-up is fairly simple, while Pine and Yelchin sport new variations on the Starfleet uniform.

Uh-oh, they've crashed the ship... again!

It wouldn't be 'Star Trek III' without the Starship Enterprise biting the dust. In a homage to Leonard Nimoy's 1984 film, it would appear that STAR TREK BEYOND will celebrate the franchise's 50th Anniversary with the destruction of one of science fiction's most famous vessels. It's not the first time, the Enterprise has been destroyed in one of the films (other than STAR TREK III), Ron Moore & Brannon Braga wrote of the Enterprise-D in 1994's GENERATIONS and the last movie, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, came very close and did, in fact, crash the USS VENGEANCE into San Francisco. There's no doubting the dramatic impact of crashing something as big as a spaceship, but its a device that has been used a lot in STAR TREK, so hopefully it's going to be a good reason to justify rolling it out one more time!

OMAZE-ing look at upgraded Enterprise Bridge set!

A series of videos have been released by the Star Trek Beyond cast & crew promoting Omaze, a charity organization who help deliver transformative experiences by supporting remarkable causes with compelling content. It's the brainchild of two friends who witnessed an experience with the LA Lakers auctioned off only to raise $15,000 for the charity organization it had been donated. Believing they could do better, the two friends formed Omaze. Their latest initiative involved nine charities and the opportunity for thousands of people to support them with the chance to be involved at all different levels with the Star Trek Beyond production.

Zachary Quinto transforms for Star Trek BeyondJune 26, 2015

Principal photography has gotten underway in Vancouver for the next (and possibly final) Star Trek film featuring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin. Zachary Quinto has uploaded a couple of images to his Instagram account to mark the start of filming by showing his transformation from mild-mannered character actor to science fiction legend. There's no word yet on whether Simon Pegg & Doug Jung's script has been finalized, but it's not unusual for a film of this size to start without a final screenplay in place. There's also no confirmation whether 'Star Trek Beyond' has been selected as the final title, but Paramount has had the name registered for various purposes, so it's definitely in the mix.

Production Update - December 2014

November and December 2014 have been an interesting time in the development of the next Star Trek movie. Writer Roberto Orci had delivered the news that the script had been handed over to Paramount Pictures senior management for review and that Orci, as had been long rumoured, would direct the movie. Then, in November, on a late Friday afternoon, a low-key media release went out from the studio that Orci would no longer direct the film. Orci then announced that he was still actively involved in the film in a producing capacity, which many took to mean he was still writing the movie.

In early December 2014, it was revealed Paramount and Skydance Productions, the film's financial backers, had a short-list of directors that included Justin Lin, the director who reinvigorated the Fast & Furious franchise for Universal. Lin's appointment was made official in mid-December and it was announced soon after that the new film would premiere on July 8, 2016. With Lin taking over, Orci's involvement seems to have been reduced even further as he has confirmed that he is now only involved in a producing capacity; which many have taken to mean that he is no longer writing the script. Disturbingly, reports have also emerged that Paramount want a Guardians of the Galaxy feel to the next film, which may account for why Orci is no longer involved as either writer or director. If nothing else, Orci does love Star Trek and perhaps the thought of a further bastardised version of the franchise for its 50th Anniversary was too much even for him...

Production Update - July 2014

Relative newcomers to feature film writing, Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have been signed to come up with the story in conjunction with returning writer Roberto Orci. With J.J. Abrams fully committed to 'Star Wars Episode VII', he will not be returning to the Director's chair, as Paramount are hoping to have 'Star Trek 3' in cinemas as part of the franchise's 50th Anniversary celebrations in 2016. Joe Cornish was an early choice to direct, but is no longer being associated with the project. Roberto Orci has been lobbying hard in recent weeks to take the Director's chair. Abrams will produce the film, through Bad Robot Productions, so it's expected that Bryan Burke will also be back on board, as is David Ellison whose Skydance Productions will co-finance the production. It's anticipated as the rights owner, Paramount will distribute the film globally.

Writers announced for next 'Star Trek' film

Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne have signed on to write the next 'Star Trek' film with Roberto Orci. Paramount senior management have accepted their story pitch and the three writers are currently working on the first draft of the script. McKay and Payne had been working on another project for J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions. In a recent interview, Payne revealed:

“I’ve done a few projects with JJ Abrams’ company Bad Robot now,” he explains. “We’ve developed a really solid working relationship.” So solid, in fact, that he and his writing partner made it on the short list, as Payne recalls, “A friend over there came to us and said, ‘So we’ve got a new project to discuss with you guys. It’s very preliminary but. . .’ And we were just sort of waiting for it, and then they said, ‘It’s Star Trek Three.’”